Sad News

This is written by Zani, Elizabeth's daughter.

After several months of ill health, Elizabeth passed away peacefully on the 18th August 2016. She loved her blog and her textiles. Thank you all so much for your friendship and support.

THE BEE LINE

     My bee-keeping outfit of a white space-suit type over-all with fencing hood and some long white kid gloves have arrived from Pakistan and very smart and pristine they are.  It is time to meet the bees who were installed by a kind friend in my new hive where they are to work and supply me and family with honey and do a little public work, pollinating the local  fruit and vegetable crops.  Dressing up can be fun, but I am unsure how to start making myself bee-proof and know I might forget a vital item and leave a hole for the bees to invade my space.
   So first, should I put on the gear? or, should I get the tool box ready and light that tricky smoker? then dress up!  I decide to  get everything ready on the front door step which is convenient for both jobs -  My housemaid's plastic tray-box with handle holds the hive tool, a queen cage, two canvas roller covers and a plastic bag for collecting brace comb.   I can nip inside the house, out of the wind, to light the smoker and use the steps to pull on the suit and wellies.  Smoker stinks of previous fires and I have not curled up enough corrugated paper to get it all alight - smoke pours out into the hall and into my hair while I struggle with broken matches and shaky hands.  Once alight and sending out plumes on the terrace, I concentrate on pulling the over-large suit onto my legs - suit seems to be made for a giant although I played safe and ordered a medium size for suit and gloves - I thought Pakistan bee-keepers might be rather smaller than Brits?   Half- way through fixing the fencing type head-gear on, I realise I have forgetten my glasses - how on earth will I see the eggs and the queen without them?  So off with the top part, on with the loop of glasses and I survey the many- fangled zips - which one to close first?  One round the neck with two rings to pull seems to be rather important but no!  the up and down the body one gets priority and there is a neat little extra zip down the bottom which I presume is for gentlemen caught short, and somewhat useless for ladies.   There are several small loops to be sorted out - one for each little finger on the cuffs to stop the sleeve rolling up - quite neat!  another loop to hang up the quite bulky suit and two more on the long gloves - are they to fasten on my ears?? now I remember I put them on myself so I could hang waxy bee stained gauntlets up with the suit on the bee  wardrobe hook - how many bees have I got in my bonnet??The neck zip is very neat and has a velcro patch to cover any possible hiding hole for bees at its closure - they've really thought this security thing through - but then a chilling thought comes to me - how about if the zips get stuck and I am caught inside my suit for days and days with only the bees laughing their heads off while I, unable to eat or drink with the face mask secured, stomp off in my wellies down the lane looking like a spacewoman and frightening all the natives away ?

   By now, my smoker is exhausted and no smoke to be seen - oh dear! do I have to go through that lighting business again and how can I strike matches with big white glove fingers that drop everything?  A few quick squeezes and suddenly I am choking  with a lung-full of acrid smoke, enough to quell a thousand bees -.

  As I approach the hives, I remind myself to be calm and steady, to introduce myself with a very gentle puff of smoke at the entrance and maybe another after I have lifted the lid and removed the crown board, and prepare to meet my lovely bees and to make friends with them, in return for their gifts of wax and honey.  They seem calm enough and I promise to return when I, too, have calmed down and look after them for future prosperity, and the dressing up becomes a mere formality  before coping with the beehive as a regular exercise and pleasure.

LADIES AMUSEMENTS 2

dried and pressed sea-weed picture from the Channel Islands




A FEW SAMPLES FROM MY COLLECTION OF LADIES AMUSEMENTS

Yes I am back on the job and please forgive the gap, which was not a holiday but was caused by three big events in my personal life - the decisioj, for purely health reasons to leave my lovely old house where I planned to stay for a few more years, the decisiion to put it on the market which has involved a massive sort out of belongings and old stock, and  thirdly the delight of going back to bee-keeping with two hives on the terrace here which are just a big
waste of time, but I do love  my bees!



DRIED FERN, DRIED FLOWER and SEA WEED PICTURES, SCISSOR-WORK, CUT-OUT PICTURES( papier coupe ), PAPER SCULPTURE of FLOWERS,  a la Mrs.Delaney, SILHOUETTES,PIN PRICK WORK, often religious figures, FELT PICTURES OF ANIMALS, PLANTS, BASKETS OF STRAWBERRIES,  especially sought after and so charming! SILHOUETTES, human HAIR mormentoes made up in braids and plaits , Shell covered boxes and ornaments, The materials and skills involved shows how Victorian ladies used their hands to create pictures of delight.
   The following Blogs will show  just some of the samples of Ladies amusements, (Regency and Victorian craft work on pictures), which I have bought, sold and collected in a very informal way for my own amusement,  and also to decorate the bare walls of each house I have renovated.  Some are quite rare, others can still be found occasionally at the big general fairs, un-recognised by the sellers and very often in very poor frames which can easily be replaced and make a great difference to the charm of these rather delicate subjects.  Birds and flowers predominate of course.
   Dried flowers pressed between sheets of blotting paper are fairly common in Victorian scrap books, but often very faded and incomplete without foliage.   There are some exceptional groups of ferns which are often quite large and very stylish and decorative,  and properly framed, these are very attractive in  groups on large empty walls!  Sea-weed, see above picture,  dried and placed in a little woven basket,  in semi-profile on a parchment backing, can be very sweet and often have a little poem below " Call us not weeds, but flowers of the sea are we "  and are best seen in little boxed frames, well arranged and not flattened out.   Many natural history subjects, like flowers, insects, butterflies, birds' eggs, etc., can be much cheaper to buy in later print form rather than in the original  natural history volumes which are now rare to find as more and more are broken up to get the max. return on scarce designs -  ' pity too' as the Welsh would say!    More about these sort of pictures will follow with a few examples that I have owned or seen on my travels.  There is not a great deal of literature about Ladies Amusements as they were considered amateur and trivial and there was no proper market place for them as they were made at home and kept in the family, together with samplers and other hand-made decorations. They were just 'family things'.

BLOG ON, BLOG OFF

I am sorry for the intermittent nature of my Blogs just now  - few and far between, but maybe that is a good thing!  The fact is that I am off on 2  new project (more news later) and have had little time to do things like gathering the pictures and references for any writing bits and  have had a really busy programme of work to complete  here in my old house - entirely for my own benefit, giving my whole house a complete shake-up, the garden a re-make, my clothes a re-sort out, and as my 89th birthday and an Italian holiday both in Sept. entice me on to complete everything in time, I FIND MY DAYS ARE VERY FULL AND THE MIDNIGHT WRITING PROGRAMME IS JUST TOO LATE;  please bear with me and I will be back regularly quite soon and on into the autumn and winter maybe and then it may be time to bid you, all my friends and readers, goodbye..

BAGS I ?

A collection of my bags, all made from second-hand scraps of old ticking, clothing or furnishing materials with old linen sheet linings, all hanging on an old French pot rack.

This was originally a very smart linen horse blanket from a French stable! You can just see my initials on the coarse linen lining top right., found on a damaged bed sheet.  It is totally washable, very strong and I prefer it to an Asda or Tesco bag!

   Tote, shopping or beach bags can be handy, if strong and capacious, and will save plastic waste!  They take about a metre of strong fabric and it takes me about 2 1/2 hours to make each one with a few pins and my sewing machine with a good strong thread.  Handles should be strong and double material, sewn on with a good 'cross' where they join the bag.  If it's a patchwork then I think a lining is a good idea! No hand sewing! I find ticking ideal and also use up oddments of French hand-woven hemp and coarse linen sheet as they do a good job and if I have any strong braid or skirt strapping, that makes good strong handles.  I have even cut up a very jolly French canvas horse blanket which is my favorite supermarket bag, see above!. I took a bit of old sheeting to line it as it happened to have my initials EB on it - a bit of good luck!   When making curtains out of old linen and hemp sheets, some people like to keep the larger red
cross-stitch initials on them for show - I do the same and of course am always looking for my own initials, E and B which are fairly common and over the years I have collected all the hand towels, napkins, tablecloths, hankies, etc. that I need but do not try and pretend I have a French grandmother!

THOUGHTS FROM MY BATH CHAIR no 2

    Getting my business going!  |When I came to the West Country and decided to sell second-hand curtains   from France, especially large ones from the chateaux which suited my own house and many other Georgian houses in the Bath area, I had to get myself known and so signed up to the first Bath Decorative Fair held in the Pavilion in Bath.  It was the greatest fun and I loved every one of the 12 following I attended. Hundreds came by and often commented on my rather light-hearted French Brocante look and I made many firm friends who shared my taste for the pretty, unusual and inexpensive adornments.  The mood changed from the rather heavy over- frilled, over- fringed,  rather shabby, Victorian (known to me as the frilly knickers look) to something rather simpler and in better taste and adapted to modern living, so I was able to combine my linens and fine cotton prints with kitchenalia and country living decorations, as well as hanging on to a few tassels and fringes.
   I tried going to the big fairs like Shepton Mallet, which I found very cramped for selling space and very tiring, and frankly, most of the passing crowds were not interested in decorating.  So when the chance to attend a really up-market decorative fair at Eastnor Castle, Ledbury, came up, I signed on with a new friend with huge talent, Polly Lyster. who was deep in indigo-dyeing mood!

   We decided to wow everyone with an all blue and white stand, no other colours allowed.  Polly provided her blue sheets as a background and then hung tie-dyed chiffon and silk shawls and scarves, with a good selection of the dazzling ikat cushions she has always excelled at.  I provided lots of chunky linen and hemp sheets and drapes in cream and white shades and there was a good assortment of French cream farmers' shirts, sturdy blue work aprons and striped tea towels.We were delighted to find several other beginner

designers were there to show their skills for the first time to the public - wacky hats, and beautiful linen hand-embroidered from the Volga Linen Co.   We were in a prime position opposite the main entrance in the marquee (early booking always helps for a good spot) - and one of the first visitors was Hester Paige, features editor of Country Living, and she made a bee-line towards us.  What followed is now history but it was very exciting.!  Polly and her family and home were featured in the magazine which lead to many good sales and contacts, she was invited to show at their big Christmas Fair in London and that was only the beginning -- her name and business have prospered ever since, always backed by her talent and extremely hard work.  It's so good to have a lucky break at the beginning of your career.  And I would say, you should always be ready and willing to chance a new opportunity - don't let it go by as offers can be very few and far between - and also be sure to look after generous friends and contacts and show them some gratitude!  Volga Linen has become a very well-known brand with gorgeous catalogues, an outlet in London and a warehouse in Suffolk - well done Theresa Tollemache! who launched it all because she had a Russian grandmother and was inspired by her embroidered  linen from the banks of the river Volga.  Inspiration and industry seem to be the successful combination for starting a new business!

   

EVEN LESS TIME!

       Here are a few suggestions for making things, possibly presents, out of pretty old fabrics.  They are always appreciated by others and all are fairly quick and easy to make if you have a sewing machine and can thread a needle.    Designs for making the most from the least;  tote bags, aprons, clothes hangers, cushions, oven gloves, pot holders, money pockets, book covers, table mats, vase stands, waste paper basket outer covers, hot water bottle covers, babies' bibs, felt folding rolls with pockets  for cutlery and jewellery storage.
just measure twice and cut once!  

When mending is a work of art

A tote bag made from scraps of early 19thC .hand-woven linen feather bed covers.

   When I first starting dealing in linen and bought large quantities as 'job lots' for very few francs and sorted through the piles when I got home from France, I often found the most beautiful small darns on the best sheets and pillow cases, which I admired.  They copied the lines of the threads and were done in the finest little stitches so they blended perfectly.  Others had the cleverest little circular darns which were done on the basis of a wheel to fill the round hole and the spokes were sewn first and then further threads were woven  till all was filled in..  I kept these, thinking that young girls had been taught to do these intricate repairs by their thrifty mothers or the 'bonnes soeurs' in the convents.   I put them on one side and was then so pleased to meet a textile student who was  taking darns and repairs as her thesis subject and she was delighted to add my examples to her collection, and even she was amazed by the accuracy and skill of the French repairs!  She obviously got most of her models from old samplers but had not yet looked at French linen cupboards!
      I have always repaired and patched all my own linen sheets, using the faulty ones up, from my buying expeditions,  sometimes saving the elaborate borders, if in good condition, and adding them to plainer ones!  A lot of French sheets, though often very narrow,  are extra long, to fold over the huge bolsters that are common , so there is spare material.
   Every year I have a visit from a delightful Japanese craft worker - she travels round England with the lightest of luggage, hitch-hiking when possible and staying with old friends who welcome her.  She loves indigo-dyed cottons and linens from France and I have now learned to save every scrap for her when I make my bags and aprons, all from 18th,19thC indigo printed and dyed bedding remnants. I am quite economical but she is a fanatic!
  She falls on them with the greatest delight and takes them back to a smart shop in Japan where they love her hand-sewn re-creations.  The clever thing she does is to repair holes and damaged areas with obvious patches and masses of hand stitching;  every one is different and it's really very amusing to think that something so original can be made out of discarded samples.  She came to see me this year and cleared my last few scraps with the usual cries of delight, and then presented me shyly with this bag which is really a miracle of patches and decoration.  There are squares of darning here and there, many additional running stitch lines in criss-cross patterns, a good pocket and extra bottom lining inside the latest bag shape from Paris cat-walks, and is a total delight - so many hours of meticulous hand work and someone who is totally inspired by the materials she has in her hands.  Such a lovely girl! and her bag - a lovely gift I value more than one from Mulberry, our local up-market bag maker!